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When she asked, “How do you do that”, I had the opportunity to make my pitch.

You enter the crowded room, looking and feeling great. You’re ready. Dressed to the “nines”, you’re wearing your best suit and have a hundred business cards ready to pass out to anyone you meet. This is what the ‘experts” say you should be doing to promote your business. They call it “networking.”

You’re ready. You begin your journey across the room, eyes scanning the terrain, looking for a friendly face. Half way through the crowd of other prowling business owners, like yourself, you inadvertently bump into a tall blonde woman in a red dress. Clumsily, you excuse yourself. She smiles and says it’s OK. Seizing the opportunity, you whip out your business card and blurt, “Hello, I’m Fred Reinhart.” You proudly add, “I’m in network marketing.” “That’s nice,” she quips, waving across the room to a bearded man in a three piece suit. Shaking your hand she adds, “I’m Kathy Johnson, nice to meet you.” Before you can mutter another word she is off in the direction of the man in the three piece. There you stand, hand out, wondering what went wrong. 

What went wrong?

You did everything the books and seminars told you to do. You wore your good suit. You had plenty of cards on hand. You even bought an expensive cologne for the occasion. What happened? Where did you go wrong?

While the above scenario seems amusing, after it has happened to you a few times it loses its humor. Worse yet, people who have had this kind of experience simply conclude they are not cut out for network marketing and tend to drop out of the business. Their income’s suffer and they assume it’s their personality when, in fact, they’ve been taught the wrong techniques.

Care about the other person

There are better ways to network and meet prospective business contacts. For openers, (no pun intended) people are more responsive if you first show some interest in them and what they do. There is an old cliché that says we have one mouth and two ears for a reason. If you listen more than you talk, you will automatically find people more interested in talking with you and being around you.

The well known marketing consultant, Jay Abraham, once said that “Discovery is the fuel of competitive advantage.” Get curious. Become interested in other people and what makes them tick. Really care about the other person. If you take the time to investigate, you will find that even those people who appear quite ordinary have a story to tell. If you show an interest in them and their lives, you will not only increase your chances of doing business with them but you may gain a friend as well. After all, you’re in a people business! 

Where’s the pain

One of the keys to gaining new customers and recruits is uncovering the other persons greatest need. What is the source of their pain? If you are speaking to someone whom you just met and, without learning about them, start talking about the opportunity to earn large sums of money with your company, you could easily lose them. Some of you are probably thinking, “Why would a person not be interested in earning more money?” Well, supposing they are in a high income bracket and have lots of money but their real challenge is not having enough time to spend with their families. In this case, had you cared enough to get to know them, you would have uncovered their real need. Knowing this, you would then reposition your company’s benefits to meet their needs. You could have talked about the freedom of not having to work a 9 to 5 schedule and the quality time you get to spend with your family. You have now addressed their needs and wants, not your own and your message will be received with more interest. Always remember that people do things for their own reasons not yours. Because one aspect of the business is attractive to you does not mean that is going to be the part that interests me. Invest the time to find out about my needs first and you will see your business grow more than you could imagine. The truly successful individuals in any profession are the one’s who always try to help the other person. Remember the wisdom of Zig Zigler who said, “You can have whatever you want if you help enough other people get what they want.”

How do you do that?

When the time is right for you to introduce yourself, there is an excellent and simple technique you can use. You can develop a self introduction that will cause the other person to ask, “how do you do that?” For example, if you are in a nutritional MLM, rather than say, “I am Joe, I sell vitamins and I can make you rich” (this actually happened to me at an networking event), you might say, “I work with people just like you, Mary, who need to stay healthy and have enough energy to build their businesses.” 

This causes the other person, if they are at all curious, to ask, “How do you do that?” At this point, you have opened the door for a further explanation or “commercial” for your business. You can go on to explain the benefits of your products and services and, presuming you’ve uncovered the other persons needs, you can talk about the benefits of being in this business — in relation to their needs.

As an exercise, devise three or four ways to introduce your business. Let each one focus on a different benefit of your product or service. Test each of them at your next networking event.

Remember: people do not buy products or services, they buy benefits and solutions.
The more you focus on communicating the benefits gained from using your products or services, the more you will benefit from the increase in business.

Tags:business card exchanges,Jay Abraham,Network Marketing,Zig Zigler